Purveyor of Anarchy Club, Splashdown, Map & Key, and other flavors

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Monthly Archives: October 2010

After an age of silence on the dream-pop front, I am tickled to announce my latest CD! It just showed up on iTunes today.

This is the beginning of my collaboration with Alice Ishbel Watson. She’s been a fantastic muse and inspiration to work with, and I consider this CD a taste of what the band will be. Cover design, as always, by Clif. Hope you enjoy.

Alice just sent me this link to a fellow in Russia doing an “unboxing” video of his acquisition of the very first Splashdown release, a blue-vinyl 7″ of Pandora/Deserter. Hardcore! I haven’t seen one of those for well over a decade.

A couple thoughts on that record:
* The mastering on the 7″ version of those two songs is slightly different than what wound up on the CD. It was adjusted to fit the sonic range of vinyl. A bit more high-end in the EQ if I recall correctly.
* “Deserter” was the first Splashdown song. I’d had a long day at work, and I had yet to ever meet Melissa, but she was coming over later that night to try some writing with me (Cynthia had arranged the meeting). I remember sitting on the bed just before she arrived, holding the guitar, barely awake, thinking, “gotta write some music… gotta write some music…” And that’s where the chords for “Deserter” came from.

UPDATE AUGUST 2012: This individual, Valentin, actually came from Russia to Boston to visit with myself and Kasson! And a very charming fellow he is. It was a memorable lunch for me. The matryoshka doll he gave me has a new permanent home on my studio desk.

Digging up some photos. Here’s one for Anarchy Club people: taken during the sessions for The Art Of War, this is the control room of Catacomb Studios, in Mr. Kirkpatrick’s fly-ass house. In the foreground is Mike, who manages Catacomb and is a nasty guitarist. Behind him is Ernesto Longoria, who played drums on three of the tracks on The Art Of War and utterly blew doors off. He got a quick glimpse of the songs shortly before the sessions. Then, on the day he met us, he sat down behind the kit and played each song perfectly all the way through — on the first time. Terrifying.

Then there’s me, and to the right of me is Chris, whom I never knew was actually the founder, not just a member, of N’Sync. A delightfully roguish gentleman, he introduced me to the film “Dirty Sanchez”, which I can never forgive. To his right is Sam, Catacomb engineer.